It is a very sincere zoo.

 We were pleasantly surprised by the Puerto Vallarta zoo right in our backyard. I thought of Linus's pumpkin patch. It maybe wasn't the biggest or the fanciest, but it was the most sincere :)

 It was actually much bigger than I thought it was, and had quite a number of exhibits. It was at least as big as our Hogle Zoo (as far as number of animals-- not real estate), but with the trees and foliage of the San Diego Zoo. Very pleasant. 

I have read a number of reviews of this place online, and realized, well, some people are anti-zoo. I feel like Life of Pi had a point about zoos though, and I tend to agree with that. However, there were a couple of exhibits that seemed a little small for their charges, we saw some pacing of a couple of the big cats, and there was a baboon which didn't seem healthy, but overall, the occupants seemed well cared for, and I loved the intimacy of this zoo. You get to get really close to these animals.  

If you pay 5.00, they even give you this little bag with food for the different critters, with a little guide on the back telling you what to give to whom.

 It was so much fun to have the monkey put his hand through the bars and grab a carrot from us. One of our favorites though was feeding the bunnies.

They were so adorable!

 Nothing to give the jaguar. I told Kai to jump over the fence. Heh. 

But the ostriches were great. Pure comedy. They look so much like marionettes to me.

 While we were feeding the ostriches, these guys marched down en masse to see what they could scavenge. Overall they were pretty well behaved. For geese. Geese scare me. Wait --and I am not the only one. Some lady came through here with her kids, and when she saw the geese she literally threw her food bag on the ground screaming "no tengo nada! ya no tengo nada!" (I don't have anything anymore!) and ran away with her kids in tow. We picked up what the geese didn't get to and brought it to her when we caught up with her. I didn't laugh at her --geese can do that to a person.

 The zebras and camels vacuumed up corn or pellets off their little wall. With their LIPS.

 Only Ari wanted to feed the giraffe --he was slimy mouthed.

 but extra cool and girraffy

 I found my birds! Remember when I told you these big pheasant sized birds were in the tree right outside my balcony? These were the guys. The white bird on the side in this picture is a peacock if that gives you any sense of hugeness. They are called Chachalacas. How is that for a name?

 We were out of food by the time we got to the kinkaju, but he loved being petted. So cute. I want one now! 

 Smiling crocodile. But I remembered not to smile back.

 We found a little taco shop run by a woman and her daughter right on our little path between our house and the beach for dinner.

We got a couple of every kind she had. So yummy. Just delicious. One of the best dinners we've had. 

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